Harrow Hong Kong

2nd May - Arrive Hong Kong

Well we arrived off our last sleeper train into Hong Kong at 11.40 on the 2^nd May. Apart from our brimming excitement at Facebook access being within arms length, we were also instantly hit by the British influence on Hong Kong, making everything so accessible. It’s hard to explain how good this was, but it’s really disconcerting literally not even understanding one shop sign, street sign. So once we arrived into Hong Kong and got the subway with all its lovely English signage we knew we were gonna like this city!

We were all pretty shattered after making it through immigration and making our way to the hotel. Our hotel was in Kowloon, so not “on” Hong Kong island itself, but only a 3min subway ride away. We decided to give ourselves a leisurely 1.5hrs to freshen up (i.e. get on Facebook) and have a shower before getting out into Hong Kong to see what it’s all about! As this was the last “official” night of our trip we had to pack as much stuff in as possible as from tomorrow people would be leaving from our group.  After having lunch at a suitably dodgy looking street food “restaurant” near our hotel (you know when you all decide to avoid looking at the kitchen that it’s not exactly haute cuisine on its way!), we decided to get the subway to Central Station and go to see “The Peak” as it’s known. Basically, to get to The Peak, you take a tram that was built around 1880 that was built to bring food and supplies etc up to people in the hilly area. They have restored this tram and you can now ride it up to The Peak Tower which is this famous building that boasts a 365 degree view of Hong Kong. The tram itself was cool - I mean the trip up is so steep that the skyscrapers beside you look like their leaning over. Also there were a load of Indian's on our tram that were whooping and getting very excited the steeper we went. It was hilarious. Especially at the top where Dan, from our group goes "come on lets start a slow clap, they'll catch on" - what do you know massive round of applause at the top, all of us bricking ourselves laughing.

Dan, Emma and Me on the Tram

Anyway, back to biznizz regarding this "365 degree view", here’s the stipulation…it provides a 365 degree view of Hong Kong when IT’S NOT CLOUDY. Yeah…suffice to say the cloud gods came to play and well our view wasn’t the greatest. But luckily we arrived at the top around 5pm so we decided to stay for over an hour until the sunset so that the lights of all the skyscrapers would be more visible improving the view…hopefully. Well it was slightly better, but in all honesty we didn’t get the best view of HK.

That night we made the short journey across the road to the Temple Street Night Market. Basically a huge night-time market in which you can buy everything from jewellery to art, to knick-nacks, you name it really! So we all had a quick perousal of the items on show. I decided to restrain myself and just bought a pair of earrings for 5 HKD – so €0.50! Myself and Emma decided to have a bit of a walk around since we weren’t interested in buying anything else. Oh what a good idea this was. The further we explored the market we more hilarious the discoveries! We stumbled upon…wait for it…Karaoke Street!

It was brilliant, basically a line of street stalls with people (mostly in their 50s btw) singing their hearts out. The best bit – there was nobody listening – they were basically just singing to the tv screen with nobody evening caring! And they were all beside each other on the street so they were all singing into microphones over each other. Absolutely painful, but gas. After walking past Karaoke St, we came upon the Psychic street! It was lined with palm readers and tarot cards readers with people queuing to see them. Me and Emma gave each other a look of “eeh…don’t suppose ya fancy it…” and well from the glint in her eye I knew she was up for it! So the two of us saddled up to a relatively normal looking guy and after bartering a price (I didn’t leave all my sense at home!!) we braced ourselves for the palm reading of our lives! Now before I go any further – most of you know me well enough to know that I am way too sarky and sceptical to take any of this too seriously. I mean I’ve seen all the Derren Brown specials where he pretty much proves it’s a load of bollox, but still it was a bit of a laugh and well what the guy said to me was kinda on the money!  Anywhoo, Emma went first. Now the only thing he asked her was her age. I won’t go into too much detail as she may not want me to but I know she’ll get a laugh outa this – he basically said she had been having “too much fun” etc with men, that she was “not like typical Chinese woman” that she was always looking for Mr. Right and then deciding they weren’t good enough. Well, the two of us nearly broke our shites laughing – basically he was tellin her she was a bit of a sluh! Ha ha ha ha well by Chinese standards anyway. God it was hilarious, she couldn’t look me in the eye when he was talkin to her as she knew I was on the verge of losing it! After telling her a bit more about her personality he moved onto muggins here.

So he didn’t ask me any questions but just went straight to the palm. So he didn’t know what age I am, the skeptic in my brain thinking this might test him. Well how wrong I was. Basically he described my personality, which was pretty feckin spot on. About what I’m like and how I think. Then he said now this is the bit that sounded pretty on the money for me – he said I’m basically going to have “lots of fun and be crazy” until I’m 28, he kept writing down 28 and circling it, and then at 28 I get serious, about work, about relationships etc. I was like, well my friend that sounds quite probable! Bearing in mind that I’m gonna be travelling and away for at least 2 years he made quite a good prediction. All in all, it was a really fun experience and we enjoyed got a kick out of it!

3rd May – Hong Kong – Bronze Buddhas and more bastardin' Clouds

So after our relatively early night on the 2^nd May we decided to get up early and head to Lantau Island to go and see the famous Tan Tien Buddha or the “Big Buddha” as it’s known. It a huge bronze statue of the Buddha Amogashiddi – meant to symbolise the relationship between man and nature (or so Wikipedia tells me haha).  You get a tube to the foot of the hill upon which the Buddha is located. Then you can get a bus or a cable car up to the statue itself. We decided to save the cable car for the trip down and got a very windy road bus up to the top. It was half way through this bus journey that we realised that the cloud gods had come to fuck with us again. Yep, as we ascended into thicker and thicker cloud we realised that we weren’t going to be seeing much today. When we got out of the bus at the top, we could hardly see each other through the thick cloud. What was even more hilarious was when somebody, by chance realised that our visibility was improved by actually wearing our sunglasses. So get a good image of that, a group of people engulfed in cloud, wearing sunglasses – ridiculous is not the word. So we decided to make our way up to the Buddha himself. Yep this meant climbing 240 steps – even HIGHER into the bleedin cloud. When we got to the foot of the Buddha, well frankly, that was all we could see – his FEET! This is what the Buddha looks like on a clear day:

This is what our view was:

LOL.

After “viewing” the Buddha, we walked around the surrounding area and went to visit the adjoining Buddhist monastery. Now this was a real treat. Outside the monastery itself there were lots of people burning massive sticks of insense as tribute to the gods. So the air all smelled of insense all around the monstery. Then the monastery itself inside was absolutely beautiful. So serene and the statues were just so impressive.

 After spending some time just soaking up the calm surroundings we all succumbed to our rumbling stomachs and quickly made our way to the cable car ride down. Once again, this was pretty much a wasted journey as there wasn’t much to view except cloud. Until we got to the bottom stretch where we emerged from the cloud. After our descent we treated ourselves to an Italian lunch – was a lovely break from chopsticks!

That evening, myself Emma, Nikki, JJ, Dan and Bethany decided to go and get a night time view of Hong Kong island on the Star ferry. This is basically a dirt cheap mode of transport that crossed the water between Kowloon and Hong Kong island. It only cost $2HK so €0.20 and the views were amazing of the nearby skyscrapers across the river. For the first time we got a decent view. Carol  1, Clouds 0.

Afterwards we treated ourselves to a beer in Causeway Bay – my new home for the next 5 nights. Our tour had now officially finished so I had checked into a really cheapo hostel right in the shopping centre of Hong Kong. I mean my hostel was located in between a Vivienne Westwood and a DKNY shop, on a street actually called “Fashion Walk”. Honey, I’m home.

 

4th May - Hong Kong - Markets & Monsoons

At this stage a few of our group had already left and more people were leaving by the day. We’d already said goodbye to the first of many great Danes (pardon the pun) that I’ve met so far on our travels – the famous Barbie and Ken – Marianne & Kim. And today we said goodbye to Dan who was heading off to Hanoi to join another tour of Vietnam and SE Asia.  After waving him off, myself JJ and Emma walked up to Mongkok market otherwise known as “ladies market”. It was a brilliant market, great stuff like really interesting iPhone covers and laptop bags, and lots of knock-off designer handbags and clothes. Once again, I had to restrain myself as the prospect of making my already heavy rucksack even heavier wasn’t at all tempting! Also, Hong Kong is definitely not the cheapest place, especially when you’re after coming from mainland China where everything is so much cheaper. Hong Kong prices are more similar to home. After perusing the market we treated ourselves to a decent dinner in an Irish bar (stop tutting, they had a great menu!). The bar itself was located in a basement, and much to our surprise when we emerged it was LASHING down. I mean I haven’t seen such a downpour in god knows how long. We HAD planned on going home but we knew if we walked more than a few metres we were going to be soaked. So we made the logical decision to take shelter in well, the nearest bar. We ended up in Castros, a Cuban bar (what gave it away) that was on the first floor with all shuttered windows which were open.  It was rammed with people sheltering from the rain – enjoying the view of people dashing about in the almost flooded streets. Sure enough, as is often said, as quickly as the downpour came, it went again and we joined the hoards of people who left the bar to make the last subway home.

5th May - Hong Long - Getting Lost

So on the by the 5^th May the last of our group were departing Hong Kong so my solo travelling would really commence. I spent the morning and early afternoon with Emma. We decided to have a stroll around just see what we found. We also planned to take a tram ride. Hong Kong island has these old trams that have been around for ages. They’re two stories but really small, and I was looking forward to taking a spin in one. Firstly the morning was mainly spent getting incredibly lost around Causeway Bay. We did stumble on a few gems like a food market with lots of “fresh” ingredients, I’ll let your imagination take over here. By early afternoon we found a tram to take us in the right direction to Lan Kwai Fong – basically an area of pubs that’s good for socialising in. I must explain, that finding a regular bar / pub just to have  a quiet one in is incredibly hard in Hong Kong, like you genuinely have to look up the streets to go to because it’s not like home, where in any built up area there’ll some kinda bar nearby. So when we found Lan Kwai Fong we were gasping for a drink and some food. We went to a bar in which the floor was covered with monkey nut shells . Basically they serve you monkey nuts with your drinks and it’s just the norm to dump your shells over your shoulder onto the floor. I must admit that the good girl in me felt incredibly guilty dumping the first few shells on the ground, but by the time we’d left a couple of hours later we had accumulated a nice pile of shells around our stools ha ha! After saying my goodbyes to Emma and Nikki who had joined us I made my way back to my hostel. I chilled out for a while then joined a roommate from my dorm Steph, a lovely british girl on her way home from Oz where we headed back to L.K.F for food and then we decided to treat ourselves to a beer and one cocktail (it was more the price that restrained us haha). What ensued was a night where we ended up dancing for hours with about 5 energetic Hong Kong girls, 2 indian women, and Alex this huge black guy from Brazil that was happy to get his dance on. It was hilarious.

Talk about a mish-mash of people – most funny was one HK girl, who literally had the rhythm of a table – she couldn’t keep a beat if she tried and she was so up for dancing she was all elbows and knees – she was literally a danger to dance beside.

Steph in the clutches of most rhythmically challenged girl ever.

We left the bar in time to make the last subway home (not drinking much has its benefits!). Crazy Hong Kong night.

6th - 8th May - Solo Life in Hong Kong

Well I’ve decided to bung these few days together because it was fairly tame. I was now on my own and to be honest I was wrecked after the hectic going of the last three weeks. I was looking forward to some downtime and to just chilling on my own for a while. Luckily I still had Steph who I was sharing with to head out for food with. One place I made sure we went to was this Michelin starred Dim Sum restaurant that had been recommended to me by my Hong Kong guru friend Vicky. Have to give her a serious shout out – Vicky gave me so much practical and useful info for Hong Kong it was great. I found fantastic coffee places (18 Grams for anyone who’s HK-bound), the best value for travelling around (Octupus Card –equivalent of London’s Oyster card), and she also gave me some fab foodie recommendations of which this Dim Sum place was one.

We managed to find it, as its hidden away in the basement of Central Station below this HUGE shopping centre. The best thing about this restaurant is that they have an English menu. This is often a problem with Dim Sum restaurants – as unless you have someone with you who can speak the language (Cantonese in HK), it can be difficult to order. So you basically get a menu or list of foods, on a sheet that are available, and you select a few of them to enjoy. Vicky had mentioned that the BBQ Buns were amazing and their speciality so I had to give them a go – also ordered some dumplings (was at stage 4 dumpling addiction at this stage!).

Food was amazing, as expected and so reasonably priced. Like still seriously cheap – even for such a good restaurant.

Over the next couple of days I mostly wrote this bad boy (I was so behind on blogs I was still writing about Shanghai in Hong Kong). I did take the time out to head down to the Vietnamese embassy in Hong Kong to sort out my Vietnam visa. I was advised to get this in Ireland before I left but it was such a pain in the ass to get from Ireland – never mind how expensive it was to get from home so I researched how difficult it was to get from Hong Kong since I knew I’d be there for a while before going to ‘Nam, and it seemed fairly easy and it was. I got myself down to the consulate for opening and joined the other travellers to queue for a visa. Arrived there at 9.30am, and was out the door with my one-month visa for $500HK – about €50. Talk about stress free – FYI if I was to do this at home it would have cost me about €150 to go through Trailfinders. SORTED.

Apart from this the only other sight-seeing I did over these few days was I went down to the Avenue of the Stars – which is sea front at the base of Kowloon, looking over onto Hong Kong island and each night they put on a light and laser show onto the skyscrapers that takes about 20 mins to background music.

To be honest, it was fairly lame, but it made me feel like I was at least doing something other than drinking coffee and blog writing! The following morning, the 8^th of May, I took myself for one final strong coffee and lovely breakfast of muesli and fruit to my local 18 Grams in Causeway Bay (I’d become quite the regular!) packed up my shizzle and got a bus out to the airport in Hong Kong to catch my flight to Hanoi, Vietnam. Upon check-in I had the shits put into me. They asked me, did I have a flight out of Vietnam. I told them I didn’t as I would be travelling over land and wasn’t sure exactly what date I’d be leaving the country. There was lots of whispers between the check-in clerk and then her senior, after which he took me to the side and explained that I may have trouble when I got to immigration in Hanoi since I didn’t have transport out of the country arranged, they may not let me in. In this case, he explained, Hong Kong Airlines would have to guarantee that they would fly me back to Hong Kong. So I had to show him my credit card to prove I could pay for the flight if this happened. Well, the thoughts of that made for a lovely few hours before I got to Vietnam… what happened at immigration in Hanoi, well you’ll just have to wait for the next blog to find out… ;)

Harrow Yangshuo!

29th April - Yangshuo "Chinese Village" my Arse!!

We got off the overnight train, pretty tired but looking forward to a shower even moreso. I also, was in desperate need of the, shall we say "facilities". Over the course of the overnight train journeys I have been training myself to use the lavatory as rarely as possible. And by the lavatory I mean the hole in the ground that the Chinese call the toilet. I will get you a picture, but so far I have not wanted to stay in the vicinity of the toilets long enough to get a photo. Basically you just squat over these holes in the ground and hope the "water" on the floor is just that, then you emerge, feeling rather "uuugh" douce yourself in anti-bacterial handwash and hope for the best. So if you can imagine the state of toilets on trains at home, imagine what these "squatties" as we've been calling them are like on trains that you're on for maybe 17 hours! I managed the duration of every overnight train with just one squattie visit - dehydration FTW.

From Guilin where our train arrived into, we fought our way onto a public bus to Yangshuo. It was a public holiday in China so we literally did have to adopt the Chinese "me first" mentality and jostle onto the bus. After takin the 1.5 journey to Yangshuo we got a bit of a shock.  Firstly, this is the description of Yangshuo according to our tour itinerary:

"Discover the village life surrounding the spectacular karst hills, river scenery and green paddy fields in one of China's best known scenic spots."

What we were actually greeted with was pretty much China's answer to *insert token Spanish sun holiday strip here*. It was crazy. Firstly, it was mega buzy. Secondly, for the first time on our trip we were not the only "big noses" around (we found out that the Chinese often refer to us Westerners as "big noses"!) We found ourselves staring at them, like we'd been stared at purely because it was such a novelty to not be the only westerners for a change! The streets were lined with tourists, both chinese and western. Loads of restaurants WITH ENGLISH MENUS. This was crazy - like so far on our trip if we weren't with Xu, to order our food in Chinese, we just pointed to a picture or made our own food. So to actually be able to choose exactly what we wanted was so exciting. We meandered through the streets, in awe of it's accessibility, and eyeing the lovely clothes and souveniers on display and made our way to our hotel, The Explorer - just off the bustling West Street in Yangshuo.

Upon arrival, we were genuinely shattered and starving. Unfortunately, despite the bright and airy reception area mine and Miri's room was a bit disappointing. We were on the ground floor and well the room was pretty damp and came with a leaky shower in the en suite. Determined not to be affected by this we resolved to spend as little time in the room as possible and rendez-vous'd with the rest of the group for some food. After having some food we took a stroll around the market streets. Got some earings for 2Y (24cent) and a bracelet for 5Y. Big spender, me.

That night we went to explore the Yangshuo nightlife. Some of our group had met a guy in our hotel in Shanghai that recommended we search out a hostel called Monkey Jane's when in Yangshuo and hit up their rooftop bar. We went in search of this place, and ended up at another rooftop bar called Mono. After one drink here we meandered further up a dark alley and stumbled upon the required haunt. Climbed up the numerous floors and emerged into youth hostel heaven. Bar with couches, fellow travellers and a raucous atmosphere...oh hello home! We decided to make a bit of a night of it, got chatting with fellow travellers, and played some beer pong!

We had great fun, it was such a laugh to mix with other young travellers. That was the one downside of our trip so far - when you're staying in hotels the opportunities to mix with other travellers is limited. We had a right laugh, but I made the somewhat uncharacteristic sensible choice not to move onto a nightclub as we had a early rise the next morning for a cycling trip into the countryside. Crashed about 2am.

30th April - Yangshuo - Extreme Country Cycling, Chinese Style

Got up feeling a little tired and no doubt dehydrated, but met a few others from the group for breakfast. Afterwards we met with Xu at 8.30am and he introduced us to Rose, our local guide who would be leading our biking tour for the day. We picked up our bikes, and began to make our way out of the city. Traffic in Yangshuo is crazy as it is all over China and the mentality seems to be "just go and hope for the best". We followed Rose and soon we were out of bustling Yangshuo and in the heart of the Chinese countryside.

The scenery was breathtaking. The hills nearby reminded me of pictures I've seen of Thailand, unbelieveable. Along the way we passed many paddy-fields and saw many locals going about their business, plowing their fields with water buffalo.

We cycled along these hidden paths through the karst countryside, until we reached Moon Hill. Some of our group decided to climb the steps up to the top, but after a strenuous morning biking I decided to stay with the rest of the group at the bottom of the hill, rehydrating with a bottle of water and a delicious diet coke! After Moon Hill we cycled to a local farmers house where we were prepared some local dishes to share Chinese style. The food was delicious, green beans, pork dish, chicken dish, pumpkin dish - all prepared really simply but lots of flavour packed in. Was really delicious and refuelled us for our cycle back to Yangshuo.

The cycle back to Yangshuo was M.E.N.T.A.L. We battled with everything from massive buses, mopeds, cyclists and pedestrians for our spot on the road. With the "me first" attitude held by all you really have to just go for it and try and be as safe as possible! Once you got onto an open stretch of road the breeze was really refreshing as it was blistering heat that day.

By the time we got back to Yangshuo we were one hot mess. I mean we were soaking with sweat (get a good mental image there Fr.) and in dire need of a shower. No lie, that was the best shower I've ever had. Although I think any shower at that stage would have felt like the best shower ever. After my shower, I went to a small bar across the street from my hotel that had one of those swingy chairs on their first floor balcony and just watched the world go by.

That evening we all got together for our last night in Yangshuo and decided how else to spend but back at ole Monkey Janes! We set up shop back beside the beer pong table and started to play. To explain beer pong to those that haven't been lucky enough to play - two people play each other, one standing each end of a long table. At the end of each side there are 5 cups, a large bottle of beer split between the five cups. Each opponent has two balls which they must aim to land in the other person's cups. If you land the little ball in one of their cups they must drink the beer. The first person to end up drinking all their cups loses!

We had some amount of fun there and mixed with lots of others for a great night. Chris the resident beer pong champion struggled through lots of games and god love him, retaining his title left him a little worse for wear! Don't know where the hours went but I believe we were still in the local KFC at 5am! Luckily the next day we hadn't too many plans so we had recovery time!

1st May - Yangshuo - Recovery Massage

Well what better way to get over a long day, and even longer night than with a full body massage. A few of my fellow travellers had been for a massage the day before and judging by their smiling, relaxed demeanour afterwards I thought "why not!". After lugging around my rucksack, I thought I'd sacrifice the "relaxation massage" for the more thorough "therapeutic massage". This would work out the muscles big time. After breakfast I popped into the massage place, Dr. Ying's or something and well I'm not gonna say "enjoyed", but more "endured" the hour of hard work the lady put into working out the knots in my back.

Afterwards we had some downtime before meeting Xu to head to, yes you guessed it, ANOTHER night train! We rendez-vous'd about 5pm and got the local bus back to Guilin. We were all quite hungry at this stage, so Xu brought us to the best option available near the train station, a "steakhouse". Any steakhouse that serves your "meat" with a side of spaghetti, and a fried egg, with optional sides of prawn crackers, fruit, popcorn, salad, cream and yogurt ain't no normal steakhouse. Anywhoo, none of us died so hey could be worse.

At about 7.30pm we all boarded what would be our last night train from Guilin to Hong Kong.

In the compartments next to us were a group of children. My first thought was "these bastards better not be up all night" but then after starting our journey some of them came to talk to us. Their English was amazing. They had been learnin English for 5 years and were only about 7-12yrs old. They were so cute. They were obviously pretty well off as they told us they were all going to London this summer to a summer school to do English. These kids were so smart, they'll be running China in a few years. Luckily they were polite kids and hit the hay early. Next stop...Hong Kong!

Harrow Xi'an!

23rd April - Arrive Xi'an

We rode into Xi'an at 8.30 on the 23rd April, hangover free, and ready to go! Then we queued with our backpacks for about 50mins for a taxi, and well frankly some of that enthusiasm waned. Got another crazy taxi ride to our hotel - The Home Inn Hotel and checked in. Rooms much like the Jinjiang Inn - bright and spacious. After checking in, we met Xu outside our hotel and he brought us on our orientation walk.

Xi'an is a walled city (I know, they feckin love their walls in China) and the centre of it is walled by this massive wall thats 14km in circumferance. We walked to the wall and hired bikes to cycle the length of it. This was really enjoyable, and apart from the smog, was nice to cycle along, wind in our hurr!

After our cycle we walked through these artists markets where we saw lots of Chinese artists writing mandarin in really interesting scripts, and others selling jewellry, and back to the hotel. Whilst walking through the market, Xu was just explaining to us some of the history of the area when this toothless old man walks up behind me and starts pointing to me and talking mandarin. Xu started laughing and translated what he said... he said "she is so so white" pointing to me!! (had to say I first thought he said "she is so so wide" so I was happy to be called just white ha ha ah!) There he was sticking his arm up beside me laughing his head off. See PAYSHTY Irish skin is IN (with the Chinese generation in the winter of their lives anywhoo!!).

After chatting up the local toothless men of Xi'an we headed back to the hotel to freshen up before dinner. We headed to a local restaurant where Xu ordered what seemed to be every dish on their menu, and once again the dishes kept coming. This restaurant was a bbq restaurant so everything was on skewers - we had everything from spicy pork to tofu strips to lamb chops, chicken wings, a great mix of food.

Some was really spicy and some had a little less heat. All in all delish. And in total it cost only 33Y for the food, i.e. less than €4 and then only 5Y for the beer, that's 60cent...it's really gonna hurt when I have to start paying real world prices of €5+ for a beer again!

24th April - Xi'an - A Wonder of the World and a Wonderful Budget

Xi'an is probably most famous for The Terracotta Warriors - now known as the 8th Wonder of the World. These are an army of 10,000 terracottta warrior statues, dating back to 700BC that were found under ground in the mid-70's near the tomb of the first emperor of China - Qin (pronounced Chin), of the Qin Dynasty. They are really impressive, as they are so fantastically preserved for being so old. Each of the individual statues are unique and vary in size depending on their rank in the army. They were said to be built around the tomb of Emperor Qin to protect him in his afterlife. They are still excavating the area and you can see the archaeologistst still at work on site.

We got a bus out to the site at about 8.30am, and had a nice snooze en route. After arriving we explored the exhibition - they have a quick short film that gives you a quick overview of the history of the Qin dynasty, then there are three large pits which house the warriors in three separate buildings, and then a large museum with artefacts that they also discovered on site - such as tools and weapons, and three large bronze horse sculptures that were also found on site.

All in all it was an interesting place, and obviously a huge tourist attraction, but it did kinda feel like the kinda place I would have gone on a school tour in primary school.

When we got back to Xi'an, we took some downtime and I started working on building my appetite for the night ahead! For tonight would be the "Dumpling Banquet", that myself, Emma, Joanne and Bethany signed up for. This is an elaborate meal served in this lovely theatre (there's an option to go and see some traditional dancing afterwards but we skipped this), and they serve you 16 various different types of dumplings. They were really fantastic. We got everything from scallop dumplings to pork dumplings to sweet walnut dumplings served at the end of the meal. We were really satisfied after the meal and it was a great traditional chinese foody experience.It was the most expensive meal on the trip, 100Yuan, so €12, but I really thought this was a price worth paying for such a good quality traditional meal.

Following the meal, we rendez-vous'd at the bar beside our hotel, The If Bar (are you sensing a trend yet) with the rest of our group and had a couple of drinks. There was live music playing, first there was just a singer guy, only in his early 20's. He had a really good voice and could deffo play guitar but I did have to laugh when he cracked out the one "Engrish" song he knew - Tears in Heaven! After this guy, a band started but at this stage we were all wiped after the long day so we crashed.

25th April - A dose of Tai Chi, Caffeine and a Win of White Rabbits

After making making the sensible decision not to go on a wild one last night, we decided to take some advice Xu offered and get up at the crack of dawn to check out the local older Chinese men and women take their morning exercise. He told us that they get up just when the sun comes up and they do everything from Tai Chi to Ping Pong to random exercises like kicking their legs up towards their heads.

We all met bleary-eyed at 6am in the lobby and made our way down towards the park beside the city wall to see what there was to see. And sure enough we were greeted by many older Chinese people getting their "gym" on. There were groups doing what looked like slowed down line dancing, others doing tai chi, others playing badmonton / pingpong.

It was really interesting for us to see the locals going about their daily routine- but judging by the quizical looks we were getting from them, it was even more interesting for them seeing our asses there. It was a really lovely morning, so I decided if you can't beat them join them so I went back to the hotel, changed my runners and headed back to the park for a quick jog. Along the park they had lots of those static gym machines that are all-weather. If you know the strand in Clontarf, you may have seen similar equipment along the walk there. So I had a jog for a while then joined some of my Chinese friends for some random exercises. They seemed to find it quite amusing but I really enjoyed getting involved with them!
Afterwards I headed back to the hotel, and en route picked up some street food from what looked like a very popular vendor. The breakfast itself consisted of what looked like a slightly thicker crepe, with a fried egg within it, brushed with a spicy chilli paste, with a sausage (of some description) in the middle. It was absolutely amazing, and well worth the 5Y (€0.60). Definitely the best breakfast solution I've had so far in China. Headed back to the hotel then to shower and pack, and myself and Miri headed to a nearby starbucks to get our caffeine fix and catch up on some postcard writing. We strolled around the Muslim Quarter afterwards, and then met with a few of the others for food. We had another night train ahead of us, and after sampling many of the local delights, a few people had a hankering for some pizza so we went to pizza hut. I decided to give the pizza a miss but they did have a chicken and rice with curry sauce that sounded like it might hit the spot so decided to give this a go. It wasn't quite your chipper curry sauce but it wasn't far off, so I left happy!

We headed back to the hotel, picked up our rucksacks and headed to get a taxi for our next train. However, getting a taxi proved a little more difficult than anticipated, as it was rush hour, so we ended up having to get a bus to the train station. So on we lumbered, each of us struggling with our ever increasing rucksacks onto a local bus, rammed with commuters during rush hour!! We just about managed not to crush anyone or ourselves and made it to the train station in one piece.
Whilst we were waiting in the busy train station some local men came over and started trying to talk to Miri. As Miri is quite tall, and typically German with natural blond hair and tanned skin the Chinese are really intrigued by hear. Xu was with us so he translated what they were asking. It was interesting to talk with them as we so often are stared at but it's hard to tell from our perspective what they're so interested in. They just were asking where we were from and what we were doing there and various things like that. You could tell by their expressions that they were just genuinely intrigued by us. But what you come to realise after a short while in China is that we, as Western looking people, are really quite a rarety in all parts of China, no matter how globalised we think the world is, there we were this evening in a heaving train station with genuinely thousands of people and we did not see one other Western looking person. It really does give you some perspective.

Once we boarded the train, we were all in good form after an enjoyable relaxing day. After having few snacks the words "Texas Hold'Em" were uttered by some in our group and instantly my ears pricked up. I took a break from writing this here blog, and joined in with Xu, Kim, Daniel, Emma and a fellow Chinese train traveller for the game. Since we're all backpackers on a budget, we weren't betting with money but with a far tastier commodity...these delicious chinese sweets called White Rabbits. At one point I was tempted to just eat my pot haha, but instead with a few strategic moves and a few bluffs - I won!! Great way to end the day. Headed off to sleep now, if I can sleep through Xu's loud snores...these open bunks do have their downsides!!

Harrow Beijing!

Well Harrow Beijing!

16th April - Arrive in Beijing

Arrived in Beijing at 9am on Monday 16th April! Flight over was grand, didn't sleep much en route from Heathrow but got a couple of films in to pass the time. Watched The Muppets first, which was enjoyably cheesy. Also watched New Years Eve which was enjoyable, yet plot-hole central! Anywhoo, I'm not here to write a film blog I'll leave that to the Boy Ryan (for those who know him!).

First impression of the Chinese (cue sweeping generalisation no.1) is that they're not the most patient of people. Got the Express Train into the middle of Beijing, 25 yuan, so about €2.40. Once I got into Donghzimen I changed to the subway which costs 2 yuan for any journey - that's about 25 CENT...ya hear that Irish Rail, yiz robbin bastards! So in general, travel is really cheap. I emerged from the subway, and my first sight was this so TYPICALLY chinese looking building

it was like "hurrah, now THIS is China". I was absolutely wrecked after arriving I went straight to the hotel with my massive backpack and checked in. As part of my tour which I'm doing in China I'm sharing with a girl, and she hadn't arrived yet so I just hit the sack. My roomate arrived shortly afterwards - her name is Miri, she's German and great craic. She has such brilliant English it would put us to shame. We started chatting straight away and I knew we were going to get on well. So that evening we both went down to meet the rest of our tour group - there's 11 of us, 9 girls and 2 guys. Everyone is really sound and easy-going thankfully, apart from me there's no other Irish, 2 Dutch, Miri who's Gernan, and the rest are all brits! We had a quick orientation meeting then myself and Miri and the 2 Dutch (the EU contingent) went out for some food. We found a busy local restaurant just down the street from our hotel, and the woman in there assured us that she "speak engrish" so we left our ordering down to her ladyship. It was gas, after the food arrives, she's up with her iphone wanting photos with us ...we soon found out we were going to have to get used to getting our photo taken! Anywhoo, we ordered one fish dish, one beef dish and one chiken dish and just hoped for the best! Food turned out to be pretty good and cost about €6 each with beers so not too overpriced. The norm here for any meal seems to be about 30-40 yuan which is less than a fiver. Can't go wrong really, and the local food is good so no need to go for the western stuff, but it's hilarious - right across from our hotel - a McDonalds, guess you can't go anywhere! We crashed pretty early on day one as we had a full itinerary for day two.

17th April - Discover Beijing

We met Xu at 9am after having breakfast in the hotel. Breakfast was good, muesli with yogurt, boiled eggs, toast, watermelon and of course the chinese options - full on salad, stir-fried noodles. I stuck to the eggs and muesli and of course coffee!! It was buffet style so as much as we wanted and only 25Y so only €2.40. So we met Xu and walked down the street to Tiananmen Square. I didn't realise we were so close to it! It was already so busy, the busiest being the queue into see Mao who is preserved in god knows what, in Mao's Mausoleum. Queue was massive!

Xu was great he gave us general history about the square and pointed out some things to note then we went around and took some pictures. It then began - the photo taking...of US. Miri is tall and blond so they just stare at her and at all of us as well. It was kinda funny at first seeing some Chinese pretend to take photos of something else but blatantly taking photos of us. Then some people just come up and grab you by the arm and talk in chinese and make the universal photo taking signal. The second we agree to take photos with one though loads of people gather round and start taking photos and trying to get in the photos. We just walked away before it got too manic! Tellin ya, I'm starting to feel like Lindsay Lohan, without the electronic tag that is.

Anywhoo back to the sight-seeing. So we walked the length of Tiananmen Square - Tian meaning Heaven and Men meaning peace so Heaven and Peace square. At the end of Tiananmen Sq you enter the Forbidden City - which is a series of buildings which used to be just for the Emperors, it was forbidden for the people to even look at the forbidden city never mind try and enter it. It was built around 1400 and for 500 years it was inpenitrable for all of the people. Series of Ming and Qing dynastys lived there. Inside it there are palaces one behind the other with vast courtyards within them. The palaces themselves are decorated beautifully the colours and the designs are beautiful. We were told that it is constantly being repaired - all the buildings are wooden so they have often been damaged by fire. It takes about 10 years for them to try and repair and repaint the whole thing. To enter the Forbidden City cost us 60Y, just over €7. The crazy thing that has surprised me is how few westerners there are in China so far. That's why they're still so fascinated when they see Westerners. Like at Tiananmen Sq and in the Forbidden City, it was teaming with people, like masses but 99% of them were Chinese, suppose that's what you get when you've a country with over a billion people in it!

After the Forbidden City we got a bus to The Palace of Heaven. All buses cost 1Y, as in 12 cent. As I said travel is dirt cheap. On the bus we encountered lots more "rushing for seats" from the Chinese. They would put Londoners jostling for seats on the tube to shame! We all just stood, on display getting stared at as always :) When we arrived at the entrance to the Palace of Heaven we were starved so Xu found a little local restaurant and ordered food for us. It's great to have him to do that becuase unless they have a picture menu we would have been screwed! He ordered lots of lovely stuff, sweet and sour pork, beef and vegtables, a lovely side dish of like beaten up fried eggs and tomatoes, lots of other stuff - so tasty.

 Big bowl of rice to dish out too. Oh and lets just say we are all on the way to becoming professional chopsticks users. By the time I leave Hong Kong I'll be like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill picking up the single grains of rice haha!

After lunch we walked through the Temple of Heaven. It's a series of temples and areas that the ruling Emperor used to come to and have a big ceremony to pray for a good harvest. Xu gave us some history on it, explaining that for the Emperor it was so important that the Chinese people have a good harvest because if they did, they were happy which meant they were not bothering him or causing trouble. Xu said that the Chinese in general even today, they just have a different mentality. Like he knows from the West we probably don't understand how they can be happy with Communism but Xu said for most Chinese people once they really just have a roof over their heads and their family and some food they are happy. That really is all that concerns them - just a more simpler life I guess. It good to just get their perspective on life.

To be honest by the end of the Temple of Heaven I was a bit templed out so I started losing interest! Also we had been on our feet walking round for like 7 hours at this stage. So we all got the subway home and headed back to the hotel. I chilled out, had a shower and hung out in the bar/common area in the hostel. Then me and Miri decided to go to Starbucks. I was never so happy as when I had a big massive Americano in front of me - even happier afterwards! God that coffee put me in a great mood. Oh and Starbucks isn't dirt cheap - it was 25Y for the Grande Americano - so 2 euro so not too bad, but worth every penny! Then me and Miri got the subway out to the Olympic Park - we wanted to see the Aquatic arena in the dark. If you remember the Bejing Olympics it was nicknamed the Cube it's all bubbles on the outside.

It was deadly, and the Birds Nest stadium is right beside it. But we've been told that it's crazy, for somewhere that's so impressive it's NEVER used now, it's like a ghost town out around it, just tourists (chinese and westerners) taking photos. Pity really! We were wrecked at this stage it had been a very busy day so we went home (had to change subway line 4 times) and crashed.

18th April - *Oprah Voice* THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA!!!

Holy mother of god this day was amazeballs! What wasn't - being wide awake from 4.30am. Although it could have been worse, as we had to meet Xu at 6.30am to get the bus out to Mutianyu - the section of the wall we were going to visit. As I was awake early I got up before Miri and got ready then I went out to scout out food options around the hotel. This was the first time I was ever in my life up too early for McDonald's breakfast haha! We were hoping that the McDonalds across the road might be open 24hrs or at 6am for breakfast but no joy. I walked down the Hutongs (little alleyways with small shops/huts/people selling food etc) beside the hotel. There were some "restaurants" cooking food at their doors, but they looked like these steamed dumplings and at 6am I really couldn't face them. There was also some guys frying these long twisty things - although they were soaking in oil and really wasn't up for some unknown deep fried something at 6am either. So we had gotten some fruit and cookies the night before in a shop so we settled for that before we left. We had a private bus organised out to the great wall. Xu explained that traffic in Beijing was mental so that's why we were leaving so early. It turned out to be great though as when we arrived at the Wall it was empty. At first it was a little chilly, as it was a cloudy day, and I was starting to regret my light tshirt and shorts decision! However, after the first 100 steps my mind was changed :)

Myself, Miri, Daniel and Bethany (the only solo travellers on our tour) headed off up the wall at our own pace and we were ahead of the others. To be honest the first section, i.e. the steps up TO the wall was the toughest part. We thought we were going to be screwed, we were getting out of breath so quickly. But it was just never-ending steps! Then once we reached the wall it got a little easier as in between most sections of steps there was a stretch of a walk. Even if it was uphill, it was still a welcomed break from the onslaught of steps we experienced. Along the way we met vendors selling water, coke, beer - at first we were laughing like "Beer?", cue it being 10 o'clock in the morning when we reached the top and the four of us celebrated with a beer. It was lovely. It was whilst enjoying this beer we suddenly thought, "oh shit, this better not go to our heads because of the height and climb as we now have to go BACK DOWN the mass of steps. Hahaha! Anyhwoo, we got a bit of a rhythm and the descent wasn't as bad as we expected. Words really can't describe how amazing the wall is, and how incredible an experience it was trekking it. Like we kept stopping taking photos and just reminding ourselves - we're on the feckin (my words) great wall of China!!

After climbing down to where we started, we walked back up a bit further in a different direction as you can....wait for it TOBOGGON DOWN THE WALL!! I couldn't even imagine how this would work but it sounded like something I could not miss out on! Also judging by the fact that health and safety is not exactly high on the agenda here I was slightly cautious! When we got there we saw that they had built what looked like a massive slide that had loads of twists and turns and some parts steeper than the other and you sat on this plastic seat thing on it with a leaver – if you pushed forward you went faster and if you leaned back it acted as a brake. Anywhoo, down the four of us went, one by one and it was brilliant! Such a laugh, and the views as you can imagine were out of this world. Unfortunately it was a cloudy day and although that hindered some of the views for our photos it was amazing tobogganing down through the cloud!

Really a once in a lifetime experience. After we had all finished the trek, we met up and had lunch in a subway at the bottom of the wall – and yes Subway is the same the world over, same smell! We got our bus back to Beijing and arranged to meet Xu at 5.30 to go to a traditional Peking (Beijing) Duck restaurant for food.

To get to to this restaurant that Xu had booked, we walked from our hotel through a few hutongs near the hotel. They really are the most fascinating places. You never know what you’ll see being cooked or sold. Everything from guys doing metalwork with sparks flying everywhere, to ducks hanging after being cooked, to people trying to sell everything from sweets to shoes. Lots of shall we "interesting" smells!

Also, when you’re walking around Beijing you get used to the fact that people will spit, yes SPIT anywhere. It’s pretty disgusting but it’s unavoidable. Luckily I haven’t fallen victim to having any spit actually on me as of yet!! Ha ha ha! Anywhoo, back to the restaurant, it was cool, we had our own private room, with a big round table. The centre of the table moved around so dishes that were placed down could be easily moved around so that everyone can share all the food. It’s deadly. We all ordered a beer and Xu ordered 2 ducks for us – this is served pretty much the same as crispy shredded duck at home, with the hoisin sauce and sliced cucumber and spring onion that you make a pancake with. Xu also ordered lots of other dishes – sweet and sour prawns, beef and vegetables, AMAZING leg of lamb all cut up, a pork dish, and prawn. There was loads of food – it’s all brought out to the table as it’s ready so it seemed like never-ending food constantly arriving, it was brilliant! After we had the meal, we walked back to our hotel and decided to go to a local bar for a couple of drinks. This was at 8.30 … lets just say by 2am I was behind the bar teaching the barmaid how to make baby Guinness! Ha ha ha! We all beered up and had a great night. The bar was only small, and whilst we were there a big thunder and lightening storm started, so we COULDN’T leave, even if we wanted to …well that’s our excuse and we’re stickin to it! Great end to a fab day!

 

 

19th April 2012 - Recovery in Beijing

Well suffice to say, we were all feeling a little delicate on the morning of the 19th April. Ha Ha!
Thankfully Miri woke me at 9am to see if I wanted to get breakfast, at first I really didn’t want to move, but in China, breakfast is one meal that it’s hard to replace if you don’t get it in the hotel. So I dragged myself outa bed and went down to the restaurant. In the restaurant, there were a few other fellow casualties from the night before. After breakfast just went back to bed for an hour as we had to check out by 12 o’clock. After checkout I just chilled, did some writing and hung out in the common room. We all met up as a group at 2pm and went out to get food. We had gotten the address of an Italian restaurant from Xu the night before as some of the group were yearning for something Western, like pizza so we had planned to go there. However when we phoned the restaurant, the phone number was incorrect so we had to give up on that plan. We decided to walk around and see what we could find. Unfortunately there really are very limited options when it comes to non-Chinese food. So we were faced with only two options – McDonalds or KFC…ended up in KFC, not great to be honest but it filled a gap, and with a 15hour overnight train ride ahead of us we needed to eat. Afterwards, we just headed back to the hotel to hang out and get ready for our trip to Shanghai.

We headed to the train station with Xu, all laden down with our rucksacks. Luckily it was only 2 subway stops away. When we arrived, we saw what a busy train station is like Chinese style. Imagine a station 3 times the size of Waterloo absolutely crammed with people. You would think there was some big event on but it’s just your average Thursday in Beijing. We got a few snacks and Xu led us to our train. As this was a 15 hour overnight train we would be sleeping in a sleeper carriage. This consists of 10 shall we say "dorms". Each dorm has an open entrance and 6 beds, three each side. I had chosen the middle bunk so that was my abode for the night. To be honest, it was quite comfortable. You were provided with a thin duvet and a pillow, and there was a little individual light above your bed and shelf. After inspecting our beds for the night we mingled between the two dorms, and played such games as "See how many cheeses we can name before we run out" to pass the time. 5 hours later and it was almost midnight and we decided to crash.

No joke – best night’s sleep I’ve had since I arrived in China!! So we’ve decided it was going out on the beer the night before that made us all get sleep – so that’s the plan for the next 4 night trains!